


Ha Lachma Anya

by Hexiva



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Female Jewish Character, Fluff, Holidays, Jewish Holidays, Pesach | Passover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 03:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17035574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva
Summary: Four years after Dawn's birth, Lorna's aunt invites Lorna over for Passover.





	Ha Lachma Anya

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plinys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/gifts).



> I hope this is what you were hoping for!

Lorna is in a meeting with Reeva and the Frost sisters when her cell phone rings. Reeva breaks off mid-sentence, and stares at Lorna, her eyebrows up.

Lorna pulls out her phone and looks at it. “Yeah, I’ve gotta take this,” she tells Reeva. Reeva’s eyebrows go further up. Lorna stares back at her.

For a moment, neither of them blinks. Then Reeva smiles. “All right - but be quick.”

Lorna rolls her eyes and steps out of the room.

“Hello?” she says, picking up the phone.

“Lorna! It’s been too long.”

Lorna catches her breath. The voice on the other end is her aunt’s.

“Is it - is Dawn okay? Why are you calling?” she asks, her free hand clenching into a fist. She gave her aunt this number in case of emergencies, and it’s been four years since she heard her aunt’s voice.

“She’s fine!” her aunt says, hurriedly. “Everything’s fine, Lorna, don’t worry. I’m just calling because it’s Passover next week.”

“Passover?” Lorna says. It’s April again, she realizes. Time is flying. It’s weird to think that things like Passover and aunts still exist in a world where she’s a terrorist and her best friend is part of a telepathic hive mind and she hasn’t seen her daughter in years. “Oh, right. Passover.”

“It’s the first year when Dawn’s really going to be old enough to understand the story,” her aunt says. “And I thought - well - ” She takes a deep breath, crackling on the phone. “I thought - maybe you’d like to be here this time. And celebrate with us.”

“No,” Lorna says automatically. “I mean, I don’t think that would be a good idea.  - Auntie, I’m a _fugitive,_ I can’t just - pop back home for the holidays.”

“Being a fugitive is what Passover’s all about,” her aunt says, and Lorna can hear the smile in her voice. “In a way.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t part the Red Sea, so I’m going to have to take a rain check,” Lorna says, glancing nervously back towards where the rest of the Inner Circle is meeting.

Her aunt is silent for a few moments. “I know it’ll be a risk,” she says. “I know. But, Lorna - you know you always blamed your father for never being there. And this - this is your chance to be there for Dawn.”

Lorna catches her breath. “But I - I - ” She swallows. “I can’t put her in danger.”

“I’ve seen what you’ve been doing,” her aunt says. “On the news. If you can do that - you can find a way to be there for your daughter.”

Lorna swallows again. “Is it - it’s Wednesday?”

“Yes,” her aunt says.

Lorna looks down at her boots. “I’ll - I’ll see what I can do,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

 

When Lorna walks into her aunt’s house, through the back door, she practically trips over him.

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t - ” Marcos says, steadying himself, his eyes wide. “I - Lorna?”

It’s been years since she last saw him, glimpsed from the other side of the battlefield. “Marcos? I didn’t - she didn’t tell me you’d be here,” she says, frowning.

Her aunt’s voice comes from the kitchen doorway. “I knew you wouldn’t come if I did.”

“You should have warned her,” Marcos says, frowning.

“Dawn deserves to have both of her parents here,” her aunt says.

“If you - ” Marcos says, swallowing. “If you want me to leave, that’s - ”

“No,” Lorna says, quickly. “No, it’s for Dawn. It’s Passover.”

“Are you sure?” Marcos asks, his eyes meeting hers.

“I’m always sure,” she tells him.

They set the table and sit down.

Lorna’s aunt lights the holiday candles. _“Barukh atah Adonai Eloheynu melekh ha-olam,”_ she sings. _“Asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu lehadlik ner shel yom tov.”_

She fills Marcos’s glass with red wine, and gestures for him to fill hers. Lorna helps Dawn fill up her cup, and then puts grape juice in Dawn’s.

“Why can’t I have?” Dawn asks Lorna, pointing at the wine.

Lorna is startled by the question. She gave up the right to raise Dawn - it seems wrong that Dawn should be asking _her_ a question, and not the woman who’s raising her. She glances, nervously, at her aunt, who nods.

“It’s all right,” Marcos says, softly.

Lorna looks back to Dawn. “It’s for adults. You can drink it when you’re an adult. Or, well, I started earlier but - um - you can drink it when you’re older.” God, she feels like an idiot. What business does someone like her have trying to be a mother?

“I’m old!” Dawn announces. “I’m almost four and a half!”

Lorna bites back a laugh. “Even I didn’t start _that_ young,” she tells Dawn. “Be patient, kid.”

“You’re supposed to ask questions,” Lorna’s aunt says. “That’s the whole point.”

Lorna’s aunt recites the Kiddush, and then brings in a basin and a towel. She washes her hands and then pushes the basin towards Dawn.

“I wash already!” Dawn announces.

“Yes,” Lorna says, “But on Passover, you have to wash your hands, even if you’ve already washed them.” She glances up at her aunt, for reassurance. “It’s - um, symbolic.”

“What’s soom-bolic?” Dawn asks.

“It’s when doing something means something else,” Marcos explains. “Like - when you play with your toys, and your doll is Captain America.”

“Oh,” Dawn says, visibly confused.

The seder continues, and eventually the three of them fill of their second cups of wine - and more grape juice for Dawn.

Lorna’s aunt turns to Dawn. “Dawn, do you know why we only eat flat bread tonight?”

Dawn looks up at her with wide eyes, and shakes her head. “No.”

“Maybe your mother can explain it?” Lorna’s aunt turns to Lorna, expectantly.

“ - Oh,” Lorna says, startled. It’s not that she has any doubts about the answer - but somehow the question, like the matzah, seems representative of something much bigger. “I mean, sure. We - we don’t eat leavened bread because our people had to get out of Egypt in a hurry, and they  - didn’t have time for the bread to rise, I guess.” Is that how bread works? Lorna’s never really been a cook.

“And because they were so poor, they couldn’t afford normal bread,” Lorna’s aunt explains.

Lorna suddenly remembers the last year she was with Marcos - before Dawn was born, before the Inner Circle. The Underground hadn’t been able to afford bread - not even matza for Passover. Not so cheap anymore.

“And do you know why we eat bitter herbs tonight, even though we eat other vegetables all the time?” Lorna’s aunt asks Dawn.

“No,” Dawn says, and Lorna’s aunt looks to Lorna again.

“Because life sucked in Egypt,” Lorna says, bluntly. “It was - bitter. Like the herbs. It’s, like, symbolic.”

“And why do you think we dip the vegetables in salty water, Dawn?” Lorna’s aunt asks.

“Don’t know,” Dawn says.

“It’s - tears,” Lorna says. She doesn’t need to be prompted this time. “To remind us how we cried, when we - ” She swallows. “When we left everything behind.”

“What about the cushions?” Lorna’s aunt asks. “Why do you think we recline on cushions tonight?”

“Why?” Dawn asks.

“Because we’re free,” Lorna says, and then looks down. “In theory, anyway. We’re not slaves. So we lean on pillows like royalty.”

“Lorna,” her aunt says, “Why don’t you tell her the whole story now? And for Marcos, too. This is his first Passover, after all.”

Lorna takes a deep breath. “Okay. So . . . Exodus. The - uh - our ancestors - ” She cuts herself off, because she knows that’s not right. “We, _our_ people, were slaves in Egypt. We came to Egypt following Joseph, who was the Prime Minister of Egypt. But then generations passed and then there was another Pharoah, and he sold our people, the Jews, into slavery. And then things got worse.” Don’t they always? “And he ordered every baby boy born to an Israelite to be thrown into the Nile. But one mother - put her son, Moses, into a basket, to float down the river. And the Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses there, and raised him as her own.” She always identified with Moses - the lost boy raised in secret in a family not his own. And now it’s her turn to lead her people out of Egypt. Is that just - some kind of manic delusion? Is she just kidding herself to think she can change the world?

It doesn’t matter. She has to try anyway.

She shakes her head and gathers her thoughts. “Moses could’ve lived as the prince of Egypt his whole life, but he knew he was an Israelite. He knew we were his people. So one day he saw an Egyptian slaveowner beating his Jewish slave, and he - he lost it, you know? He killed the slaveowner, and then he had to go into hiding.” She doesn’t say _like us,_ but she’s thinking it. “He went to work as a shepherd on Mount Horeb. And then one day, he saw a bush that was on fire, but not being burnt. And the bush - uh, was God? And God told him that he would lead the Jews out of Egypt to freedom. He told Moses to go back to Egypt and bring his message to the Pharoah and the slaves.”

Lorna looks to her aunt for reassurance. Her aunt nods.

“So Moses did what God said, and came back to Egypt to tell the Pharoah to free the slaves. But the Pharoah refused. Nine times. Each time Moses told the Pharoah to free his people and the Pharoah refused, God brought a plague down on Egypt. The ninth plague meant the first born son of every gentile Egyptian died, and the Egyptians couldn’t bear that. The Pharoah ordered Moses to take his people and get out. And God’s will was done.” Lorna takes a deep breath. “And that’s - what we remember today. Oppression, and revolt, and freedom.”

“One day it’ll be you telling that story,” Marcos says to Dawn.

* * *

 

As Lorna’s aunt goes to put Dawn to bed, Marcos and Lorna linger in the doorway.

“Thanks - thanks for coming,” Marcos says, awkwardly. “I think it meant a lot to Dawn.”

Lorna raises an eyebrow. “She’s four. She doesn’t care.”

“Well - it - it meant a lot to _me,_ then,” Marcos says, looking up at her. “To have you here.”

His black eyes are bright and soft. Lorna bites her lip. “I did it for Dawn,” she protests.

Marcos leans in - and kisses her.  Lorna reciprocates, their lips pressed together, their hands intertwined, as if this might be the last kiss they ever have - because, of course, it might be.

Finally, they break apart, and for a moment, there’s silence.

“Next year, then?” Lorna says.

“Yeah,” Marcos agrees. “Next year.”


End file.
